When will the 1.02 out?

#101 [Removed link to bug database. Sorry, we've been using forums for getting bugs from community up to this point. My misunderstanding, sorry.]

#102 I'm only going to say one more thing, and then I'm out of this discussion. Basically I am moving on to another game engine.

We know you're working on it. You guys say it all the time, but you have also "pushed back" TGEA on many occasions. You even said this yourself, "The reason for the delay is that we have a QA bottleneck (excellent qa people, just not enough and too many products). Since TGEA 1.02 is a minor update, it has been pushed to the end of the queue a few times. It will come out when it comes out."

There doesn't seem to be any focus on TGEA other than the latest products such as Torque Game Builder and Torque Wii. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing. But those of us that have been struggling with TGEA don't feel as though GG is doing anything about it. Sure, we can do what you said: "You don't need an update to make your game. Don't be an "update collector", just get 'er done" but we've been doing that for months now. YES, many things are broken in TGEA that's advertised as "functional" and "working" while there are additional bugs that we are waiting for. Not all of us want to keep "patching" bug fixes from 3rd party devs all the time. We want official bug fixes. That's not an excuse to put TGEA on hold, even if it's a "small update".

And finally as I leave, your statement, "With that said, see the secretary on the way out to have your feelings validated" is an insult. We feel that we have legitimate reasons. This has nothing to do with feelings or not. We are making excuses on when things will be done because GG hasn't finished TGEA or that they pushed back the QA tests.

This also means that NOTHING much has been done with TGEA. And, with your statement about having our feelings validated, you're basically telling us to F-off and stop pestering you. That's fine if that's what it is. I'm out of here since that's the way you treat your customers and TGEA community members.

#103

Quote:
There are extremely valid reasons why it's being delayed, and you will all be very happy when you find out why.

Please be patient.

I want to go on record here and correct/adjust the expectation I may have set here--it turns out I spoke without checking for confirmation, and as Clark says, this update does not have any major feature updates.

I apologize guys, my fault.

#104 "And finally as I leave, your statement, "With that said, see the secretary on the way out to have your feelings validated" is an insult."

Point taken. My attempt at humor was not appropriate. Sorry.

#105 Would it be overly inapropriate to suggest that renewing the old cvs system as a way of releasing the type of minifixes included in 1.02, as well as bolstering the qa staff by simply having more folks with a stake in seeing things fixed looking over changes might be a valid proposal to mitigate some of the acrimony here? Just a thought...

#106 @Kirk What I been thinking that it needs to be reinstated this way not waiting long time for new fixes and candy. But think they took it down cause of some abusing of the system, tis sad tho.

First I have seen of that bug tracker will have to check it out. Hehe yeah I also did a WTF on that secretary comment and was hoping it was a joke. Mr. Hodges will be back when he finds the alternatives aren't that great hehehe.

#107 @Clark - There isn't a TGEA in the project list in Mantis for me... is it maybe not set as a public project?

#108

Quote:
There are extremely valid reasons why it's being delayed, and you will all be very happy when you find out why.

Please be patient.

Wow. Lack of QA staff for a few bug fixes doesn't really make me very happy. What a depressing thread. I'm not sure what bothers me most: seeing us customers being treated like crap or seeing my $300 game engine already on the bottom of the priority list with few fixes or enhancements in sight.

GG seems very business oriented. But this lack of support and respect can't help business as it makes its way out to other game dev forums. The lack of respect comes in both treatment of customers on the forums and lack of respect for our own schedules and timelines. If we know your plans, we can plan better. This isn't the only thread where customers and GG employees are snapping at each other (as I'm sure you know).

As a constructive comment, it would be nice to see a forecast and a beta page that lists features that are planned for the future and features/bugfixes that are currently being worked on. It has been done by other game engines and that openness has mostly stopped this kind of customer ire. At least then we would know there will not be anything new in the future. To me, one of the worst things is investing a huge amount of time working around a problem an engine has and then getting an official fix after you've made that investment. I have plenty of other things to do beside fix something someone else is already working on. I think this would be a good time for GG to step back and look at their customer relationships. And I don't think withdrawing from the community is good business either. We need more communication, not less.

#109 @Tom - yep, just double checked and we don't have a public TGEA bug database. I removed the link above. At this point, we are grabbing bug reports from the forums. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I seem to be 0-fer today.

#110 sigh
The same old stuff is coming around again on this thread I see.

The issue of no public release schedules has been raised before. I'm not going to say anything more about it, personally, because I'm sure Stephen has noted my concerns from the last time this went around.

Listen everyone: GG staff stopped releasing this kind of information because of a lack of (apparent) "maturity" on the part of us, the community. The only thing that is going to change this is showing a change of attitude. I'm not saying that we all must GG "fanboys" or whatnot. Just that we should try to be understanding that for whatever reason(s), schedules change. It's a fact of life in professional software development. All we can do is try to stay patient, and civil. Also encourage everyone else you encounter to tone down their emotions and stay patient as well. I'm sure Stephen and everyone over at GG would like to me more open with their release schedule, but we need to prove ourselves first.

On another note: Stephen, if you guys needs some help in QA stuff I'd be happy to volunteer some time. Send me an email and let me know what I can do, if you're interested.

#111 @Mark - No offense but I don't agree with your post. Mature? Oh come on now. People like myself have rarely complained at all.

We were told almost 4 months ago that an update was on the way. An update to a TGEA product that doesn't do everything it's advertised to do. Missing advertised features, bugs, and a lack of information from GG on what's going on with the product. We've paid money for this advertised product and we've also spent a lot of our time on it.

We were also told 6 months ago that ALL TGEA features will be working by Version 1.0. That never happened.

Then we were given the bug tracking link as if we have no right to be complaining, and as Tom Spilman points out... there's not even a TGEA project in there.

As someone else pointed out, if it was just a minor bug release, then why is that taking so long? GG then tells us that we don't need those bug releases or updates (please review the postings from Chris Fagot) to get our games out. What?!? If this was the case, then how come we didn't get TGEA for FREE? I mean, we're supposed to buy it and then fix your problems too?

Yesterday we were told that "big things were going on in the TGEA bunker!" which was the reason for the delay. Wait, did someone say delay? Nobody told us that. Then today we're told of a link to some bug tracking software. Well, there's a problem when there's no TGEA project listed in it. Excuse after excuse. Then we find out today that there isn't anything going on with TGEA. Oh my. What the hell have we been waiting for then?

They released TGEA as an early adopter and things were supposed to be finished in Version 1.0. What happened? Nothing. It's been 6 more months of the same thing. Yes, a few new enhancements but the product has false advertising. The same broken features and now more bugs you can shake a stick at. I wouldn't mind any of this if GG informed us on what was going on. But this non-communication skill they invented is just downright wrong.

I don't think any of us need to tell GG and their staff how to act towards their community and customers. But one thing for sure, they have a lot to learn on how to handle them. They have no problem taking your money for a TGEA product that's not finished, advertised features are broken, bugs, but don't you ever ask them an estimated time on when things will work, or if they are addressing it. Most likely, they are not even looking at TGEA.

People keep saying that there is no other product like Torque. Don't fool yourselves. There are other engines. Would it be easier for me to use TGEA? Yes, since I invested both money and time, yes. I bought so many Torque products but if I ever did it again -- I would stay far away from GG. I'm tired of waiting and getting the "runaround" whenever I ask about the current TGEA state.

The truth is, they weren't working on it at all. They had no plans for it. They kept us in the dark because they didn't want us to know that both Torque Wii and Torque Game Builder was more important than TGEA. That's not the problem though, the real problem was they didn't tell us that.

#112 @Andy: My comment about maturity wasn't referring to anyone specific. I'm just reiterating the reasons I have heard for the lack of communication on GG's part. I agree that the lack of communication on status is frustrating, but there's really not much we can do it about it right now.

#113 This isn't worth the controversy. I'm withdrawing from the conversation.

#114 I never knew TGEA was available 5 years ago. So Pat, where can we download some of these working TGEA games that you made? I am so very curious.

Pat said, "Go ahead. Tell me it can't be done, because I've been listening to it for...oh about 5 or so years. Find another engine, if you can't cut it."

That is so typical coming from GG employees that have taken our money. A product (TGEA) that has false advertisement that's not even complete. The point is, we PAID for a product as advertised. Not or IF it can be done. Most of us don't have >100 hours as you obviously do. We paid to have a finished product as advertised.

#115 It's clear that you did no footwork to find out who I was before replying. I also made that mistake in replying to you. For some odd reason I thought that someone, with your display of the inner workings of Torque, could possibly make any kind of competent valuation of the product.

#116 [quote="Pat Wilson"]Find another engine, if you can't cut it.[/quote]

Posts like that one Pat won't help diffuse the situation. Honestly, it's posts like that which result in a lot of the backlash that you see from people.

Honestly, your an employee. During the Marble Blast for Xbox etc, you guys were adding features as you needed them. But years ago you were telling people that the engine could ship games now. Meanwhile I was working with the engine and if you had any more than a few skinned meshes, your frame rate dropped to sub 5 fps. As an experiment one day I ported our code directly to TGE with no optimizations and watched the frame rates on the TGE version with 16 bots stay steady around 30fps or so (forget the numbers, its in a post here from a couple of years back), while the TGEA version of the same code was getting under 5 fps. With just 1 bot it was like 60 fps in the TGEA version. That was just one of many gamestopping problems at the time, yet even back then there were people saying that TSE was ready to ship games. While the engine could ship Marble Blast, it couldn't ship many other types of games... which is why people are PAYING for the engine in the first place.

It's a lot different state now, the engine is for the most part usable, you can ship a variety of different games with it. But right now what I'm seeing is a lot of defensive comments on both sides of this without really addressing the points at all.

- TGEA CAN ship games right now, though for some game types your going to need to do large amounts of work. For others its a lot less. A lot of the end users have unrealistic expectations of what the engine should do.
- TGEA is NOT without issues. Some of them are very big ones (the context issues and the sunlight on atlas IMO are huge). Others are things that are easily solved.
- Many TGEA owners feel that it is taking a backseat to other products.

#117 Pat, we as customers ALL thought that GG (you know, people such as yourself) would've been more competent by delivering a product as advertised.

As for doing any footwork as to who you are, I could care less who you are. That's not the point. You said that you have made TGEA games for the past 5 years. So, where are they? I would like see one of your full-working TGEA games.

Telling us that we can get by with a broken and buggy TGEA is ridiculous.

#118 I shouldn't really be saying anything here since ive only been apart of the GG community since 2006. I do have a few comments to add here. @Pat - I dont think the overall argument here is about us waiting for you to fix bugs, but the fact that you are advertising a product that has "working" features that are not working. When I saw TGEA when it was TSE, I thought it would be great, and it is but there are many things that everyone has said that need the be changed.

I agree with some of the points that have been made like the advertised features that arent working but supposed to be and, putting TGEA on the back burner. Why add more products when you haven't finished your current ones? TGEA is a great product and you can make really nice games with it, but when new people like me come and see this, its not a very nice welcome to see that GG doesnt give a rats ass about TGEA.

#119 Wow, go off and program for a few hours, and things turn uglier... So. um...
a- are folks gonna start to remmeber were all human beings here, and treat each other with dignity accordingly.
b- start proposing some solutions to issues
or just
c- go ahead and lock this puppy as it's gone from a thread to bookmark to see if anythings going on on this front to a flamewar?

#120 @Kirk - Option "C" is what the GG staff is typical of doing. They don't want to hear it.